ON Monday morning this week the in-tray of the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the School System will have been full of envelopes with a Gloucestershire postmark.

Inside each one was a letter, poem or drawing by a pupil of St Anthony’s free school in Cinderford explaining to Lord Agnew of Oulton why he should not close the school.

To highlight the point, children aged from three to 11 marched from the school in Flaxley Road, down the hill into the town centre where posted their letters – even if some of the smaller ones needed some help to reach the opening.

Pupils, staff and parents have come together to fight the threat to the school after a highly critical Ofsted report which has left the Department for Education in London “minded” to close St Anthony’s.

All of the 98 pupils who in school on Friday (February 9) left at 1.45pm singing This Old Man, many carrying banners they had made.

As they marched down Belle Vue Road there were cheers from passers-by and the tooting of horns from motorists.

Among those who joined the march was the Mayor of Cinderford, Cllr Roger Sterry, who said it was important that the school stays open.

He told the Review: “There was great support for the school – everybody is of the same opinion, we think it should stay open.

“Our schools are already over-subscribed and closing St Anthony’s would put more pressure on them.”

Cinderford Town Council was due to discuss the situation at its meeting last night (Tuesday).

St Anthony’s headteacher Lorna Middleton said the show of community support and the backing of the mayor was “marvellous”.

But they have to convince the minister who told Mrs Middleton and governors he was “minded” – which is government-speak for the preferred option – to close it when he met them in his offices at Westminster’s Great Smith Street .

Mrs Middleton said: “When we met Lord Agnew I did ask, rather cynically, if he had made his mind up: ‘When you send s a letter saying you are thinking about it, you’ve actually made a decision and you’ll tell us when you’re ready.’ ”

The hope is that, having told them he has open mind that, as Mrs Middleton put it: “They will actually look at the plans we’ve got in place and listen to what the community wants.”

Lord Agnew was also invited to Cinderford to “take the temperature” of the place before making a decision which could have profound implications for many families in the district.

He declined the invitation, saying he was responsible for 22,000 schools across England, but Mrs Middleton said the “critical difference” was that most of them were not under threat of closure.

In the run-up to Friday’s march, the children have had it explained to them could potentially happen – and thought about what the school means to them – although it was initially hoped that such “adult” issues could be kept from them.

Mrs Middleton said: “I asked parents what they wanted to do and explained that it might cause some anxiety which could manifest itself in challenging behaviours at home as well as in school.

“The vast majority wanted to do the best for their children and not include them in these very adult conversations.

“The children were beginning to hear things about St Anthony’s from other sources, so parents grasped the nettle and explained in child-friendly terms and we did the same at school.

“I explained there are people who don’t live here who make decisions about whether your school is a good school or not and whether it ought to stay open or not and that somebody was thinking our school wasn’t good enough to stay open and I asked them how they felt about it.

“I asked them how they would tell someone why this is a good school to come to and that is what gave rise to the letters, the picutres, the poems and the signs and that led to the idea of a march.

“One of the things we’ve focussed on is taking personal responsibility as an individual and the contribution you make to the teams you are part of.

“All the children know their classes are their team and they know the class belongs to the school team and today they learnt that their school belongs to the community team.

“It gave them a real sense of their place in their community, it could not have been more powerful for them than it was.”